Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

I teach graduate classes at the American College of Education (ACE). ACE is an entirely online college with degrees available in nursing and education. I have to be honest—it has changed my perception of what online learning can be.

Having earned all three of my degrees in person at Kent State University, I have always had brick-and-mortar arrogance, assuming that schools with physical plants were inherently better than those without. In some instances, I still believe that, mainly when thinking about K-12 education and the abuses we have seem by unethical online charter schools.

But at the graduate level, I must admit that ACE has changed my perspective. While it does lack the synchronous, in person discussion I think is vital for Socratic learning, the rigor of the coursework is equal to or stronger than any of my past experiences in brick and mortar facilities.

Anyway, this term I am teaching a course called School Improvement. Basically, students analyze school improvement plans, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and then develop an improved plan based on their research and discussions.

My students are really smart, and they are doing great work. But a few—just a few—have argued a fallacious point in their assignments. In essence, they suggest that the main areas causing their schools to be unsuccessful are things like:

• poor student attendance
• lack of family support
• misbehaving students
• vaping and cell phone use by students
• student inattentiveness or disruption

The students arguing these points are suggesting that their school improvement plans should address these issues, and that school culture will not improve until these things are fixed.

I think they are missing the point, not unlike that meme that says, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." A correlation definitely exists, just not the correlation they are making. The debate about which came first--the chicken or the egg--can be argued either way, I suppose. But in the world of schools, it is culture that drives behavior, not the other way around.    

My argument is this: if you are hoping to improve school culture by trying to increase attendance or family support and decrease student misbehavior, you are treating the symptom instead of the disease. You’re putting ice on a broken arm; it may reduce the swelling, but until the arm is set and a cast applied, it’s not going to get anything more than superficially better.

Instead, educators who work in places that have a negative culture or morale need to focus on the root causes. I’m going to suggest these:

• Build positive relationships. Genuinely care for students and their families, and show them. Listen to them. Talk with them. Get to know them. Everyone of us is more likely to respond positively to people we like than people we don’t. We must invest in building relationships as the foundation of any attempt to improve morale or culture.
• Actively engage students in meaningful lessons. Solving real problems is motivating; completing worksheets and listening to lectures are not. I am a superintendent with tons of schooling, but even I start jingling my keys when I find myself in a boring situation. Understand that meaningful, engaging work does not mean frivolous work. It means work in which students have choice in solving real problems related to the content standards.
• Be vulnerable enough to give decision making authority to students and families. How often do we find ourselves engaged in conflict over stupid things like dress code, cell phones, or hats in school? These sorts of prohibitions are often created over the adults’ desire to maintain control. Why not holding authentic conversations with students and families about what they want their schools to be? If the school community does not value not wearing hats indoors, why have a rule prohibiting it? All that does is set up the potential for conflict and right-fighting.

I contend, if we spend more time building relationships, engaging our students, and giving away some of our authority, those symptoms we see will heal themselves. Attendance will improve, office referrals will go down, and families will enjoy participating in school events.

Educators need to continually ask themselves, “What problem am I actually trying to solve?” When you do that, you are more likely to find yourself curing diseases instead of treating symptoms.

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